Russian Kettlebells Archives - www.oldtimestrongman.com

Alexeev and Kettlebells

Posted on Friday, November 10th, 2017 by John Wood

Alexeev is among the many Russian Champions who maintained a love of kettlebells training throughout his career. Based on the throwing circle at his feet he’s using the kettlebell to warm up and probably about to do a little shot putting.

Novak & Sons: Kettlebell Juggling

Posted on Thursday, October 19th, 2017 by John Wood

After setting over 60 world records over his career, Grigori Novak did what any great former weightlifter would do: he ran off to the circus to become a genuine performing strongman. Eventually, Novak’s two sons Arkady and Roman also joined the act, you can see them above doing a little kettlebell juggling during their act. Kettlebell juggling is pretty impressive on its own, but seeing several lifters doing it at once in tandem is amazing.

Russian Kettlebell Lifting Contest, 1965

Posted on Friday, May 13th, 2016 by John Wood

Here’s something you don’t see every day, an actual Russian Kettlebell contest. This one was held in Moscow, circa 1965. In these types of contests the object is to get the kettlebell (or bells, when a pair is used – look closely, there’s a pair on the platform here.) overhead as many times as possible in a 10:00 time period. Usually the one-arm snatch or two arm jerk is contested and, as you can see there is certainly no lack of willing participants.

Russian Kettlebell Exercises

Posted on Sunday, August 21st, 2011 by John Wood

Kettlebell Exercises

If you’re going to train with Russian Kettlebells, may as well go back to the source to see how to do it right. Pictures help, but you’ll get a little more out of this post if you can read Cyrillic. “Traditional” kettlebell exercises consist of the snatch (which is more like a “swing” since it travels in an arc) and the clean and jerk (mainly just the jerk) done for maximal high reps.